


Where Does the Good Go

by roryfox



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Angst, Heartbreak, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 03:45:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8874493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roryfox/pseuds/roryfox
Summary: "Where do you go when you're in love and the world knows?How do you live so happily while I am sad and broken down?What do you say it's up for grabs now that you're on your way down?"- Tegan and SaraOr, in which Rhett and Link share seven minutes in heaven and those four hundred and twenty seconds shift Link's perspective.





	

**Author's Note:**

> These people are fabrications, the story based on nothing except the fact that today I was listening to Tegan and Sara while drinking champaign. Also I have a lot of angst.
> 
> Aesthetic based on the fic: https://acryptidfabrication.tumblr.com/post/154580039095/but-the-seven-minutes-seven-minutes-hed-looked

When Rhett showed up at his house unannounced at the front door it usually didn’t mean anything good. This time was no different.

Whenever Rhett came over unannounced he would climb the tree next to Link’s window and let himself in (Link kept it unlocked for this purpose, but was also aware that if Rhett could force himself in then any robber could as well. The pros outweighed the cons). But he used the front door, ringing the bell. No one was home but Link (had he known that? Had he planned this?) and he’d been in his room listening to Wheezer. That was his amazing, Saturday night plans: sitting on his bed listening to Wheezer and staring at the wall.

But then Rhett was at the door. Link was excited for half of a second before realizing wait, wait, Rhett was at the door. He stood on the front step looking uncomfortable in his own skin, like he was being forced there at gunpoint. He didn’t come in when Link opened the door, didn’t start talking before Link even had a chance to say hello. He just stood there, hands behind his back.

“Hey, buddy.” Link said, smiling but not feeling it. “You okay?”

“Can I come in?” Rhett asks and doesn’t move, doesn’t push past Link the way he usually does. He just stares, waiting for permission.

“Sure, dude, of course.” Link steps out of the way. “Since when do you ask?”

Rhett doesn’t respond, walking into Link’s foyer and standing still. For the first time in their lives he looks like he doesn’t belong there, like he doesn’t fit in.

But he’s always fit in to Link’s life. Since the beginning he’s fit like a puzzle piece, like a second limb, like his brother.

Like more than his brother. At least, that was what it felt like recently. Ever since Sindy Foster’s party when they’d been dared to do seven minutes in heaven. Lots of kids, especially the girls, joked that they were together in the Biblical sense, but they’d always brushed it off. They were jokesters, pranksters, they can dish it out just as much as they could take it.

But the seven minutes. Seven minutes. He’d looked it up. Four hundred and twenty seconds. Out of his, approximately 504,911,232 seconds on this Earth, and approximately 315,569,520 seconds of knowing Rhett, it had only taken four hundred and twenty seconds for everything to change.

Well, probably more like three hundred and sixty seconds. They’d spent the first minute laughing awkwardly and rolling their eyes bout how they’d gotten into that situation. It had all been a joke.

And then Rhett and leaned forward and kissed him. Even that night Link wasn’t sure if the initial kiss had been part of the joke, had been part of the fun. But then there was a shift, one that neither of them expected, and they were kissing each other. Link had his hands on Rhett’s shoulders and Rhett had his fingers tangled in his hair, yanking and pulling him closer and maybe it was the alcohol or the dark closet but soon they couldn’t get enough of each other. Their hands were tracing and clawing and Rhett at some point slipped his tongue in Link’s mouth and four hundred and twenty seconds is just as short as it sounds. They’d heard someone coming to the door before it opened and broke apart before anyone could see and the girl (Mary? Beverly?) who opened the door complained that they hadn’t even participated, had just sat there in the dark. Rhett said something (he could always pull himself together quicker than Link) and they’d exited the closet as if nothing had happened.

Rhett rejoined the party. Link slipped up to the upstairs bathroom and sat on the floor, staring at the wall with his knees up to his chest. He could still feel his friend’s hands on his chest, could feel the way Rhett’s lips had felt.

His skin felt too tight. He felt like he was going to suffocate in his own body, like everything was collapsing in. This wasn’t it, this wasn’t it, this wasn’t what it was supposed to be.

He went home without saying goodbye to Rhett, ignoring the tingles in his fingers and the tightness of his jeans.

But that hadn’t been the last time. A week after the party, just past midnight, there was a knock on Link’s window. He’d been sitting in his bed with his side table lamp on reading for class. Well, skimming for class, if he was honest.

He’d opened the window and Rhett came in with ease, the motions practiced and memorized. He sat on Link’s bed without a word and Link, not wanting to break the almost magical feeling in the air, hadn’t said anything either.

It was a blur after that. Even when he tried as hard as he could, he couldn’t remember who leaned in first. One moment they were sitting next to each other on his bed and the next moment they were kissing again, mouths open and sloppy and no alcohol in their system to take the blame.

The next moment Link is on his back on his bed and Rhett is pinning him down by his shoulders and they’re kissing, kissing, kissing and Link can’t stop himself from gasping into Rhett’s mouth when his nails dig into Link’s skin.

It broke the spell and Rhett sat up and Link can’t stop himself from reaching out to him.

But Rhett’s standing and in the next moment he is gone, climbing down the tree and out of sight before Link can get up and look out the window.

He dreamed about that moment, the moment where Rhett was looming over him, holding him down to his bed. He should have been afraid, should have tried to push him off, but instead he’d wanted Rhett to have complete and total control. The only person he trusted above himself. And he always woke up with sweat on his brow and his skin too tight, everything too tight.

It became a thing. Link could count that every few days Rhett would sneak into his room and they would kiss without words. It began seeping into their ordinary lives. Rhett held his hand while they sat on his bed and studied for a pre-calculus test, Link found himself resting his head on Rhett’s shoulder when they watched a movie together. It almost felt like a relationship, like something he’d had with his now ex-girlfriend freshman year. But they never talked about it. Part of him had been itching for Rhett to bring it up, but part of him, like the first night, didn’t want to spoil the magic.

And then he was there, looking too large of Link’s house, hands now shoved in his pockets. Not looking at him.

“What’s going on?” Link said slowly.

“We can’t do this anymore.” Rhett whispered and Link found himself furious, furious that Rhett could come over to his house and decide what they could and couldn’t do without having the decency to look at him.

The weight of his words hasn’t hit Link yet.

“What are you talking about?” Link said. “Do what?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

The anger boils over and it’s the only thing masking the pain. “If you’re going to call something off, at least be man enough to say what it is.”

Then Rhett turns to him, eyes glaring down at him, and the magic is gone. “We can’t kiss anymore. We can’t hold hands, we can’t cuddle, and I can’t sneak into your window at night. We can’t do this anymore.”

The entire house collapsed around them and Link remembered looking down and standing in rubble and dust. Rhett had seemed unbothered, his eyes looking away from him again. This was the smallest he’d ever seen his friend.

Link hadn’t had anything to say. Rhett left without another word and the next day everything had been fine. And the next. And the next. And the next 694,252,944 seconds of their lives had been fine too.

“Hey, buddy? Buddy?” Link blinks and looks at Rhett sitting next to him. The camera is almost ready, the lighting perfect, and everyone is shuffling off set to get ready. “Lost you for a second there.”

“Sorry, sorry, Stevie said something earlier that got me thinking.” His mouth is dry and he takes a drink out of his mug.

“Link?”

“Hmm?”

“I asked what she said.”

Link bites his lip and looks down at his lap. “She just asked where the good goes.”

“What?”

“She said ‘where does the good go’.” He can’t remember why she said it. It hadn’t even been at him, he doesn’t think, but it had stirred up something inside of him.

He’d asked himself the same question when he’d gone upstairs and locked the window.


End file.
